I reread the passage, noting it had to have great meaning, because Marie didn’t even mention food, something she almost always did.
I then tried to recall Harmony’s letters, which I’d read at least four times.
Charlie was begging her to come to America. He offered her the money for the passage. And she planned to go. She was nipping away her allowance. She teased she was doing it to buy her trousseau. From her responses to him, it was obvious he did not tease that he didn’t give a crap about her trousseau, he only wanted her.
And then…
“Shit,” I mumbled, pushing aside papers to get to the big stack of letters tied in faded yellow ribbon.
I was going through dates to try to match a letter somewhat near Marie’s entry when something out the windows caught my eye.
Christian, who I hadn’t seen since that first day, wearing a slicker and jeans, mist in his thick blond hair, was walking through the garden in front of the studio.
His eyes were pinned to something.
I turned my head to look out the side window.
Chastity was on her knees in the mist with a bucket of mulch, a trowel, her frizzed hair, frizzier in the weather, pulled back in a huge poof of a ponytail.
I looked back to Christian who had stopped walking, but he hadn’t taken his gaze from Chastity.
“Okay,” I whispered like he was right there, and I was giving him a peptalk, “I want you to go for it, but I’m terrified you’re gonna go for it, so just do it, but you gotta take this real slow and be real gentle.”
Like he heard me, Christian started walking again.
I held my breath when he stopped next to Chastity.
I kept holding it when she twisted her neck to look up at him.
I continued holding it when I watched her entire body lock.
I knew he was saying something to her.
Inexplicably (maybe), in the middle of him saying it, she popped to her feet and ran—not jogged, not dashed—ran toward the house.
And she disappeared.
I let my breath out in a whoosh.
I could only see his profile as he stared after her, but I still could read his shock and concern.
“I sense you went gentle, but…shit, man, that was rough,” I muttered.
I watched him drop his head and lift a hand to rub the back of his neck. He stopped doing that, stared for a good long time at the space where Chastity disappeared, and then he walked out of my vision.
“Crap,” I mumbled.
I looked to my phone and saw my alarm was going to go off in quarter of an hour to tell me to get back to the house and get sorted for dinner.
I turned off the alarm, grabbed the studio phone and called the house.
“Yes, Miss Vivienne?” Patsy answered.
“Hey, I’m going back in. Do I need to do anything to the fire, or will it just die out?”
“I’ll send Scotty out to check it, but it should just die out.”
“Thanks, Patsy.”
